


Seventeen

by revebaby



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, College Student Hyunjin, Coming of Age, Developing Friendships, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Growing Up, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, Slow Burn, biology teacher yves, college student heejin, dancer kim lip, dancer yves, gowon and hyejoo besties, haseul and jinsoul besties, heejin and yeojin sisters, married viseul, past chuu/kim lip, slow burn hyerim, teacher chuu, transfer student hyejoo, viseul own a bakery, vocal coach jinsoul, yeojin and choerry besties, yeojin is viseul's daughter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 19:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30144501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revebaby/pseuds/revebaby
Summary: There's something about the transfer student from Uijeongbu. All Yerim's friends tell her that Hyejoo is a delinquent, but Yerim wonders if she's really that bad.
Relationships: Choi Yerim | Choerry/Son Hyejoo | Olivia Hye, Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Kim Jiwoo | Chuu, Jeon Heejin/Kim Hyunjin, Jo Haseul/Viian Wong | ViVi, Jung Jinsol | Jinsoul/Kim Jungeun | Kim Lip
Kudos: 27





	Seventeen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before u read anything PLEASE follow me on twt @revebabying i just made this acc and nobody is following and its really really sad
> 
> SO ive had this in the works since early 2020 i think and ive only j finished the 2nd draft!!! i was gonna wait until the 3rd was done to post anything but i couldnt help myself so here!!! ill prob post the next chapters once the 3rd draft is done which shouldnt be more than 2 weeks or so
> 
> also it would help a lot if u could bookmark pls and leave a nice comment :)
> 
> heres the playlist i listened to while writing this on my yt channel: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4FX5SMFTdQE2jBzAQY_V2ggFBFRwdc4b  
> (you can probably tell whats coming next bc of that playlist oops)
> 
> u can also search for seventeen - hyerim by revebaby on yt

‘I was only trying to socialize you.’

When Yerim comes home to find a head of dark hair asleep in her bed, that's what her mother says.

‘I figured it might be good for you,’ she begins, flitting through junk mail absently. ‘Y’know, having no siblings and no good friends.’

‘But I have friends,’ Yerim interjects quietly.

‘The girl you babysit doesn’t count.’

‘I have Jungeun and Jinsol too.’

‘The women who live downstairs?’ She scoffs. ‘I don’t know if watering their plants when you go away makes you friends.’

‘Well, their cat likes me.’

Her mother stands up with a hopeless sigh, abandoning the letters on the dusty table in the living room.

‘Look, Yerim,’ she says in her designated Mom Voice, her hands on Yerim’s shoulders to meet her eyes very sternly. ‘It’s been hard with those girls picking on you, hasn’t it? This could be a good thing if you let it.’

‘They don’t do that anymore, Mom.’

‘I assumed they ignored you at best.’

Yerim brushes her mother’s hands away gently, aiming for a reassuring smile. ‘We’ve grown up a lot since then.’

‘If you say so,’ she said as she straightens. ‘But Ms Ha and Ms Kim told me on the phone how worried they were about you. I couldn’t help but think it was true.’

‘It’s not true.’ Yerim shakes her head gently. ‘We’re doing great now. They’re nice girls.’

‘Good.’ Her brows unfurrow as she sits herself back down. ‘In that case, maybe you can introduce someone new to your group. Help someone who needs it. You can do that, right?’

She reaches up to pat Yerim on the cheek and Yerim can’t help but smile at her in reply.

‘She’s a transfer student from Uijeongbu. She’ll be sleeping in your computer room. Show her around, sit with her at lunch, I’m sure your friends will love her.’

When she goes back to her room, she’s instantaneously invited to a staring match with the transfer student, whose eyes seem to shoot lasers at Yerim as she intrudes into her own room.

‘You’re awake,’ Yerim says after some time, with a polite smile behind the set of bedsheets she’s carrying for the pull-out sofa in the adjoined computer room.

‘Well, you talk really loudly. That tends to wake people.’

It’s strange how her voice doesn’t match her face. Her voice is soft and nearly childlike, but her eyebrows are set in a furrow, her lips forming a permanent frown. She might be pretty if she didn’t look perpetually annoyed.

‘Sorry.’ Yerim puts the bedsheets on the dresser by the door with an easy laugh and walks over to the girl. She extends a hand for the exchange student to shake. ‘I’m Choi Yerim.’

The girl stares at her hand. Then, robotically, she says, ‘I know. Your mom told me.’

Yerim retracts her hand and wipes it down the side of her coat like that was what she meant to do all along. ‘What’s your name?’

Pulling the bedsheets back over her head, she says, ‘Son Hyejoo.’

A month passes and the new semester starts. Yerim would like to say they become good friends in that time, but she doesn’t think she can.

They’re in the same class at school. Hyejoo sits at the very back row, Yerim at the very front. There are two rows of students to act as a buffer between them.

They never interact much at school, or at home either for that matter. Hyejoo is indifferent to everything. She just doesn’t care. The only conversations they’ve had are arguments and they all share a very similar format. Yerim will ask Hyejoo if she could please put the wet towels in the laundry bin and not on the floor. Hyejoo responds with a half-hearted  _ whatever  _ as she chews and pops her gum. When Yerim insists, Hyejoo doesn’t even bother responding. She ends up doing Hyejoo’s chores for her. This is how Yerim ended up with a constant pain in the neck from sleeping on the pull-out sofa in the computer room. Hyejoo would never remember to turn off the gaming computer when she was done with it, no matter how much Yerim begged, so she decided all she could do was sleep in there herself in order to turn it off at night. Needless to say, they never get anywhere.

It’s not that Yerim dislikes her, but she doesn’t appreciate how Hyejoo seems to think the world revolves around her and her alone. She doesn’t care about anyone or anything. What if she’s one of those kids who catch and murder small animals for a thrill, to feel something?

Will she snap one day? Because sometimes Yerim feels like a small animal in front of her. 

Right now, she’s standing safely behind the door of her locker at the back of the classroom, and she’s looking at Son Hyejoo, who is asleep. She sleeps through most of her lessons. Yerim on the other hand has never gotten worse than a B- in her life.

Hyejoo hasn’t made any friends. She sits alone at lunch. Sometimes she’s not even in the canteen. It makes Yerim feel guilty, so she hasn’t stopped trying with Hyejoo. It makes her mother happy, so it must be the right thing.

‘Are you ready to go?’ asks someone behind her. It’s Minhee, smiling back at her.

‘Yeah, I think.’

Yerim takes Minhee by the arm, shakes her head clear again and stands a little straighter as they make their way out of the classroom for lunch. Hyejoo can’t be all bad. Nobody is all bad. She just has to try a little harder with her.

  
  


Cho Minhee is Yerim’s very best friend. She’s kind, soft-spoken, but fun and pretty with long eyelashes and a small face and sleek brown hair. They’ve known each other for eight whole years and their friendship has never so much as wavered. Even if Minhee has other, cooler friends now. She still invites Yerim to sit with them and go out with them, so Yerim isn’t really upset about the fact.

Sometimes Minhee’s friends talk about stuff Yerim can’t relate to, but that’s just how she can be. They like to laugh at people sometimes, which she doesn’t approve of entirely, but they’re never mean to people directly so it doesn’t make them bad people in her eyes.

‘So then she said that he said that it wasn’t what he meant to do, but it so obviously was,’ says Yujin, valedictorian. Yerim often wonders how proud her mother would be if her grades were as high as Yujin’s.

‘Did you tell her that?’ asks Suji, daughter of the PTA president, as they sit at their table in the canteen with trays of food in hand. Their mothers are good friends.

‘No. Of course not.’

‘Why not?’ comes Eunsoo, who’s on the editing team for the school newspaper. ‘She’s your friend, isn’t she?’

‘Do you really expect me to say something like that to her face?’

‘I guess not.’

‘Well, it would have been awkward and painful to bring it up anyway. She might not have believed you,’ Minhee adds, so fluently one with them.

Yerim zones out instead of listening. She doesn’t really know who or what they’re talking about so she looks over the canteen instead. A few people whose eye she catches wave to her, like Hyejin from IT and Jinsang who used to live nearby and Hara whose mother works with Yerim’s. Yerim has always been good at meeting people.

Although she smiles back at these people, she knows Minhee will always be her very best friend. That’s how things have always been. Anyway, she’s not even sure she remembers the names of some of these people because they haven’t spoken properly in months.

There’s one face she can name but can’t smile back at, though. Son Hyejoo. 

She sits all alone at a little table by the window. Yerim is glad she’s not eating in the library or in the toilet stalls like they do in movies. It’s a start, right?

Or maybe she doesn’t want a start. Maybe she doesn’t want to make friends at all. Why wouldn’t she? Aren’t friends the backbone of your life? You can’t live without a backbone, you’ll fall right over.

But Hyejoo hasn’t even begun to slump, let alone fall over. She’s odd.

Then her fiery almond eyes rise to meet Yerim’s and she looks away immediately, feeling her face heat up as Hyejoo glares from twenty metres away.

Minhee notices this. Sitting opposite Yerim, she follows her and looks at Hyejoo, now eating with a bored look on her face.

‘Yerim, what’s with her? I heard she was staying at your house?’

The other girls listen in. They might not want to say bad things, but they don’t ever mind hearing them. They’ll never repeat these things to anyone’s face though. They’re trustworthy.

‘She’s Son Hyejoo,’ Yerim tells them. ‘She’s from Uijeongbu.’

‘I don’t even know where that is,’ says Soyoung, class president.

‘Why did she come here?’ Minhee asks.

Yerim doesn’t want to lie, but she also doesn’t want them to know her mother thinks they are bullies. If she does try to lie, the minute she opens her mouth, it might not be able to close again. Still, she wonders what they’d think if they knew the whole truth.

‘I’m not sure,’ is what she settles on with a closed-mouth smile. It’s not technically a lie.

‘They said she got expelled,’ Suji says.

‘Who said that?’

‘The women from my mom’s book club.’ 

‘No offence,’ Minhee begins, touching Yerim’s arm gently, ‘but I don’t find it too hard to believe. You’ve seen how she speaks to Ms Ha in biology. They argued on the first day of the semester!’

‘And she’s always alone.’

‘Right, she doesn’t speak to anyone.’

‘Not even you, Yerim,’ Minhee finishes, her eyebrows knitted in concern.

‘You know,’ Yujin adds with a chuckle, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if she was one of those kids who behead little animals in the woods.’

Everyone laughs. Yerim laughs too but she feels a pang of guilt for even thinking those same words. 

‘It must be awful with her in your house.’

They all turn to her, expecting agreement, but she doesn’t want to say yes, not even if Eunsoo is kind of right.

‘I would be scared for my life,’ concurs Minhee with a solemn nod.

Yerim scratches the back of her neck. ‘It’s not like I talk to her much at home either. My mom struggled to get a word out of her at first.’

‘Well, opposites attract,’ says Yujin, and they all laugh quietly.

Yerim pauses at this statement. She looks around while they laugh and she sees Minhee wave her hand in dismissal, so she forces on a polite smile.

Once, she had asked Minhee if these were all implicit jabs. She said no, of course not, Yerim should stop being so sensitive. She has always been sensitive. It’s not their fault.

‘Do you trust her to live with you, Yerim?’

Yerim, not wanting to say no because it’s mean and not wanting to say yes either because she knows they’re bound to disagree, makes a seesaw motion with her hand.

Soyoung giggles. ‘I don’t blame you.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be all about diplomacy and stuff?’ Minhee elbows her in the side.

‘I am! I have nothing against her, she’s just… different. You can see for yourself, I mean.’

They all turn around very not subtly to peer at the school’s intruder. Yerim turns even redder because of them.

‘Is her hair natural?’ Suji asks, her eyes screwed up. ‘It doesn’t look natural. It makes her look pale as a ghost. And is that blue on the ends? Are we in 2008?’

‘I’ve seen documentaries about people who don’t make friends in school. Serial killer documentaries,’ Yujin says with a definite nod.

Then, all too quiet suddenly, the girls rush back to their lunches. Eunsoo and Soyoung are suppressing giggles, Suji nudges them, a smile on her own face. 

Curious, Yerim lifts her head and her heart sinks.

Hyejoo is stomping over, tray and all. She has always been a head taller, but now that her irritated glower has contorted to something cold and murderous, she has become a dark, looming figure over the table. This isn’t the same Hyejoo who doesn’t care about anything. It’s strange. It’s scary.

The table has fallen completely quiet. It’s obvious to anybody with half a brain what they were just talking about. Or who.

To break the silence, Minhee smiles warmly at her. ‘You’re new, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. What are you laughing about?’ Hyejoo’s lips stretch into something like a smile but not quite it. 

‘Nothing, inside joke,’ Minhee dismisses with a wave of the hand. ‘How are you finding Seoul?’

‘It’s fine.’

‘You’re from Uijeongbu?’

She presses her lips together as if wondering how Minhee might know that. Yerim looks down at the tray in front of her.

‘I am,’ she says.

‘You must miss it. Do you have anyone to sit with?’ She tugs on Hyejoo’s jacket sleeve, pulling her down beside her. 

‘You should sit with us from now on,’ Soyoung says as she and Suji shuffle up to make room.

‘Yeah, your friend’s already here,’ Yujin agrees.

‘My friend?’

‘Yerim.’

‘Oh,’ Hyejoo says. Then she pulls a face with her lips pursed and her nose crinkled, disgusted to even be associated with somebody like that. Yerim takes a sip of water to try and swallow the lump of heavy shame in her throat.

All the girls laugh. Hyejoo sits down, puts her tray in front of her, and plasters on another smile.

‘So, why did you come to---’

‘I’m Son Hyejoo, by the way.’

‘Cho Minhee!’

Minhee holds out her hand for Hyejoo to shake exactly the way Yerim had a month ago. Hyejoo stares at it again, but her expression is different this time. It can’t be good. 

Hyejoo reaches out, takes Minhee’s hand, and turns it palm up. Then she lifts her other hand to her mouth and sticks a wad of chewed gum in Minhee’s hand.

Minhee squeals, jumping back so hard she almost falls off the bench. All she can do is gape at the spittle collecting in the lines of her hands.

Hyejoo doesn’t say anything, but the fake smile has fallen from her lips, and pure, unadulterated resent is written on her face instead.

Minhee stumbles out of her chair and rushes off through the cafeteria doors. The others follow her one by one, looking more disgusted than Yerim has ever seen them.

‘You should be ashamed,’ Yujin spits.

‘There’s more where that came from.’ She stands too. Yujin is just a thread taller, but the way she holds herself, Hyejoo towers over Yujin.

Yujin, obviously intimidated but too proud to show it, walks off, grumbling. Hyejoo watches every step. Then she turns to Yerim, who feels a chill run down her spine.

‘Why did you do that?’ Yerim asks, standing slowly.

‘Are these the friends your mother told me about?’

Yerim taps her nails against the side of the tray she’s holding and says nothing. This is the first time Hyejoo has put any real effort into an argument. She’s turning red with anger.

‘How could you just laugh along with them?’ she says, astounded. ‘I knew there was something about you. I thought you were prissy, but you’re a bully just like them, you know that?’

‘I’m sorry, Hyejoo,’ Yerim says quietly.

‘You’re not sorry. You would do it again if you had the chance. Unlike you, I’m not going to sit around and let them harass me.’

‘I don’t. They don’t.’

‘What I said for her was meant for you too. Don’t mess with me. Don’t even try. I’m not going to sit around and take it with a smile like you do.’

Yerim chances a look around the canteen. She puts her head back down immediately. People are beginning to stare. Of course, Hyejoo doesn’t care.

She scoffs. ‘Just because you’re scared to be alone.’

‘I’m not scared, Hyejoo.’

‘Oh, yeah? Because the people you keep around you don’t even seem to like you that much.’

‘Those are my friends you’re talking about.’

‘Wow, some friends. You’re just like them, aren’t you?’

All Yerim knows is that she should be the bigger person, but she’s burning with embarrassment and shame. Sitting right on top of her mind, clouding her judgement, is the cruel thought that if people see her arguing, they’re going to think she’s just like Hyejoo. She doesn’t want to be anything like Hyejoo. That’s why she says what she says.

‘At least I can even make friends.’

Hyejoo gapes, moving back a few steps. ‘As if I want to make friends with anyone like you.’

‘People enjoy my company, Hyejoo. Nobody even likes you.’

‘Fuck you.’

Her voice wobbles, it’s nothing compared to what she can usually deliver, but it hurts a little more.

Yerim quietly rounds up her and her friends’ things and walks out of the room. She can feel Hyejoo watching her in astonishment with those dark, feline eyes, but she’ll look silly if she turns back now.

But halfway down the hallway, someone tall bumps right into her. It’s Ha Sooyoung who holds out an awkward arm to keep Yerim from going any farther. She teaches biology and dance lessons on the side. This is the first time Yerim has seen her so professional. They’ve known each other for years.

‘Come with me, you two,’ she says, and Yerim’s mouth gets even drier.

  
  


Ms Ha doesn’t tell the principal. That’s what Yerim was afraid of. The whole way to her office, Yerim had been rehearsing what she would tell her mother when she got a call from the principal who doesn’t even know who Choi Yerim is.

Luckily, Ha Sooyoung decides she can handle this. She sits the two of them down on swivel chairs in her office, then she leans backwards against her desk and says, ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

Yerim stays quiet, but she knows enough about Hyejoo now to know she isn’t going to answer either.

Ms Ha doesn’t say anything and as the silence grows, so does the will to fill it.

Then again, maybe she should answer. Hyejoo’s version is likely to be a lot more blunt. It’ll disappoint her mom. Plus, she doesn't want Minhee to get in trouble.

‘It was nothing,’ she tells Ms Ha. ‘Just a little disagreement between Hyejoo and my friends.’

‘Really? And how did it start?’

‘I don’t know. You know Yujin is kind of volatile. And Hyejoo is…’

She takes this in with a sigh. ‘So was it Hyejoo’s fault?’

That’s sure to warrant a call to the office where Yerim’s mom works.

‘Of course not,’ she dismisses with a well-behaved smile. She's trying her best to mediate so nobody gets in trouble and nobody gets mad at her. 'It was nothing, really.’

‘Still, Hyejoo instigated? We take bullying very seriously here.’

‘Nothing happened, Ms Ha. Just an argument. Hyejoo’s not a bully.’

‘I guess I have no reason not to believe you. You’ve never lied to me before.’ She purses her lips. ‘Hyejoo, is this the truth?’

With her arms crossed, she sinks into her seat and mumbles, ‘Yeah.’

‘Alright.’ Ms Ha straightens. ‘I want you to keep in mind that it's only January. The semester has just started and you've already been in so much trouble. If you want to stay in Seoul for the rest of the scholastic year, you ought to mind your behaviour and---’

‘She told you I didn’t do anything.’

She frowns. It must be hard to deal with Hyejoo professionally. ‘And the way you speak to people too. You’re on thin ice here. You’re free to go.’

‘Whatever,’ Hyejoo mumbles, pushing herself to her feet and rushing out the door.

Yerim watches her leave. There’s a bad taste on her tongue. Maybe she’s sick.

‘Thanks, Ms Ha,’ she says as she rises to her feet.

‘Wait, Yerim?’ Ms Ha reaches out a hesitant hand. 

‘Yes?’

‘Are you alright?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

She picks up a single pink sticky note left on the desk behind her and plays with it stiffly. She’s always a little stiff when she isn’t professional.

‘Did they do something to you, your friends?’

‘No. They’re not kids anymore.’

‘Did they do something to Hyejoo?’

Yerim forces a laugh. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘I don’t know. I know it’s not my place to meddle, but I’ve known you for so long.’ She exhales deeply. ‘Just know if you have to lie so they’ll keep being your friends, then they’re not very good ones.’

Ms Ha just doesn’t get it.

‘Of course,’ Yerim waves as she exits the staffroom. ‘See you.’

‘I’ll see you,’ Ms Ha says fondly to one of her favourite students.

When she’s outside, she finds Hyejoo standing there, her back to her.

‘Why did you stick up for me?’ Hyejoo asks.

‘I didn’t want my mom to find out.’

‘Well, don’t do it again. I can take care of myself.’

Hyejoo stomps off. The minute she’s out of sight, Yerim’s heart becomes heavy.

For almost eighteen years, her mother had raised her to be kind and polite above all else. Why can’t she even do that? How has she managed to hurt someone who doesn’t care enough to be hurt?

Acid rises in her throat again, that same taste on her tongue. She needs to find her friends, but first, she wants to wash this aftertaste out of her mouth. Her mom won’t be able to leave work to pick her up if she’s sick.

She rushes into the girls’ bathroom that’s by the canteen, but the second the door opens, she bumps into someone.

‘You took your time,’ Yujin says, arms crossed and an eyebrow arched. ‘Still not sure about your friend?’

The rest of the girls are huddled around Minhee on the floor. She’s in tears, holding the affected hand out like it’ll never, ever, ever be clean. Yerim’s heart breaks under the pressure. She drops to her knees in front of Minhee.

‘I’m so sorry, Minhee.’

‘Her  _ spit  _ is on my  _ hand _ ,’ Minhee weeps, hidden by a curtain of black hair.

‘Where were you?’ Yujin asks. 

‘I spoke to Hyejoo, then Ms Ha called us to her office.’

‘You told her what she did, right?’ says Suji, expectant. 

Yerim looks down at the grout between the tiles on the floor and they all sigh loudly.

‘Seriously? Why wouldn’t you tell her?’

‘I didn’t want to make it worse,’ Yerim says, because she knows how the truth might make her look.

‘So you decided to do nothing. Good.’

‘She won’t do anything again as long as you leave her alone.’

‘Leave her alone?’ Minhee cries. ‘I was being polite! I was asking because I want to get to know her!’

‘Maybe Yerim’s right,’ says Soyoung from the side, holding herself like a child. ‘Maybe let’s just leave her. Let her be alone if she wants to be. She’s the one who’s missing out.’

‘That’s very class-presidential of you, but she’s a bully!’ says Yujin. ‘Suji, can’t you tell your mom? She could get her suspended, at least.’

‘She could get her expelled if I stretch the truth enough.’ Suji grins deviously.

‘No!’ Yerim says quickly. She’s supposed to watch after Hyejoo, this won’t sit well with her mom, and it’s just petty. Besides, she doesn’t like the thought of Hyejoo being alone with her stuff all day. ‘No, we can’t.’

‘Yerim, why are you defending her?’ asks Eunsoo with a scoff. ‘Are we friends at all?’

‘Of course we are! I’m not defending her, I swear. But if she did this because you laughed at her, imagine what she’ll do when we get her expelled.’

_ ‘We  _ laughed at her,’ Suji corrects. ‘But you have a point.’

‘She’s the only one who’s missing out. What a freak.’

They laugh a little sadly. Yerim does too. 

‘You’ll steer clear of her too, right, Yerim?’ Minhee wipes her nose along the length of her sleeve.

‘Me?’ Yerim blinks at her. ‘But I live with her.’

‘I know, but I’m worried she’ll take out her frustrations with you on us. Not that I want her to take her frustrations out on you. She shouldn’t take it out on anybody.’

Well, they might live in practically the same room and their T-shirts might be folded in the same chest of drawers, but they’ve avoided each other this far.

She feels that aftertaste in her mouth again.

‘You’re right,’ Yerim says. ‘Don’t worry. She won’t bother any of you again.’

‘Good.’ Minhee smiles tearily. Yerim takes her into her arms and pats her on the back.

She lives for these moments where she is one with them. It doesn’t feel like real life. It feels like they’re in elementary school again, still sharing beds at sleepovers, still too young to know too much, still perfect. Everything is perfect.

There’s just one thing.

Does this mean she’s not allowed to apologize? 

**Author's Note:**

> thank u sm for reading!! pls leave a nice comment if u enjoyed !!!  
> twt: @revebabying


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